Download Cities in Globalization

JOSEFINA V. CABIGON
Cities in Globalization
JOSEFINA V. CABIGON
Professor, Population Institute,College of Social Sciences and Philosophy
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
This paper highlights two evidence-based views in understanding
the nature of cities in globalization. The first view is that cities are
forming a world city network with a particular geography that is
city-centered (command power remaining in core-located cities
and network power in non-core cities) to impinge on future social
change. This world city network is a part of globalization processes
that are inevitable and irreversible. It is conceptualized as an
interlocking network with cities as the nodes in spaces of flows
linking localities in the whole network. It constitutes the knowledge
constellations for the production of services, and agencies, such
as business firms, as the sub-nodal level that creates and provides
the services as the prime agency of network production and
reproduction. US cities are command power centers but are always
most strongly connected to other cities within the US (dominance
of space of places) and less prominent in the world city network
(prominence of spaces of flows) – a pattern of emerging freedom
of cities, especially those in weak states. The world city network
is not inherently regressive in nature; it can service global capital
as well as create a new economical politics (concern for networks
of trade and finance) operating through the principles of
cooperation and mutuality.
The second view is that cities are now reflecting a clear cultureeconomy overlap, with global cities such as New York, London, Paris,
and Tokyo emerging as centers of the global economy and cultural
industries and are also the prominent destinations of immigrants who
tend to be vulnerable to exploitation and to congregate in enclaves.
Major cities in the US are reflecting a city growth coalition of profit
seekers, political leaders, and cultural institutions resulting in the
economic becoming cultural and the cultural becoming economic.
Marketing the city’s cultural offerings aims for both consumption of
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culture and generation of income in the city. With world cities in
globalization operating as a world city network, studying cities in terms
of relations between and among cities, and the link between cities as
a process, is necessary. Research gaps such as lack of data and of
studies of relations between cities as state-centric are realities.
Specifically, demographers who are more known for providing
populations with news expressed meaningfully in terms of numbers
and rates face the problem of data that reflect relations on migration
between and among cities.
KEYWORDS: Cities, globalization, spaces of places, spaces of
flows, world city network
Introduction
Understanding the nature of cities in globalization is essential knowledge. Cities
all share common traits (e.g., a market-oriented nature). They also possess a
potential for dualism (promise: wealth, innovation, and social change; and trouble:
prostitution, poverty, crime, and pollution, among many others). Cities matter
greatly to us globally and locally. They are the center of trade, commercial
establishments, business firms, advanced culture and technology. They are the
destinations of immigrants hoping and searching for employment. Cities represent
the most often used and influential places in the world. Our success and survival
in that world today and tomorrow depends on the knowledge we have about
such places. Cities are particularly challenging entities to understand. Apart from
having multiple personalities, they offer very different faces to differing people.
Equally important is that they are constantly evolving, impacting on our lives and
the lives of others.
The literature on cities has demonstrated three realities in understanding
cities. First is that the nature of cities and city life varies among societies. The city
looks and operates differently within the same society at different periods of its
history. Hence, no single definition or concept can be formulated. Second is that
the nature of the city is peculiarly open-ended. The nature of the city is less a
system of internal coherence than it is a place in which different things are going on
simultaneously, because of, or often despite, each other. The third reality is that
culturally, politically, and economically, the city has no geographic limits in an
urban society.
Moreover, there are two prevailing perspectives on the nature of cities.
One is that cities are places. For example, Orum and Chen (2003) define cities as
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places or specific locations in space that provide an anchor and a meaning to who
we are. The other perspective is that cities are a process. For instance, Castells
(1996) views cities as a process by which centers are connected in a global
network.
Which of the two perspectives on the nature of cities (place or process) is
more relevant in understanding cities in globalization? To answer this, defining
globalization is in order.
Prevailing concepts on globalization
Globalization has been on a center stage in intellectual, political, and
business discourse. According to literature, there is a plurality of meanings of
globalization. In terms of social science disciplines, Khan (2003) notes that
globalization for the economist is the emergence of a global market. For the
historian, it is an epoch dominated by global capitalism. For the sociologist, it is
diversity and convergence of social preferences in matters of lifestyle and social
values. For the political scientist, it is a gradual erosion of state sovereignty. For
the geographer, it is the location of transnational spaces within national territories.
In terms of ideology, globalization for the capitalist is economic development
of all. In contrast, globalization for the socialist is a world becoming more and
more economically polarized (widening the gap between the rich and the poor).
Khan posits that globalization, as a concept, has three dimensions. The
first dimension is its being a phenomenon that manifests the extremely intricate
interconnectedness of human life across the planet earth. For example, all of us
share the same environment and experience global warming. The second dimension
is its espousing a philosophy that essentially describes the reality of being
interconnected. A global vision is the necessary prerequisite for effective policy
and strategy for improving the quality of life. The third dimension is its involving a
process that is inevitable and irreversible. It seeks to eliminate political and
geographical distances between peoples through the technology revolution (e.g.,
the Internet). It also promotes politico-economic liberalization (e.g., collective
creation by states of international norms and regulations through international bodies
such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and regional bodies
such as the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
In short, globalization is the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing
impact of worldwide interconnectedness (Held and McGrew, n.d.). Yet there
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are three prevailing arguments about the nature and meaning of this
interconnectedness (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton, 1999). The first is
the hyperglobalist’s argument that there exists a single global (borderless) economy
in which states are increasingly the “decision-takers” and not the “decision-makers”.
The decision-makers today are global finance and corporate capital. The Group
of 7 countries, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade
Organization are institutions nurturing this single global economy.
The second is the skeptic’s contrasting reasoning. Instead of the world
heading towards a single global economy, the skeptic argues that the world is
breaking up into several major economic and political blocs. Within such blocs,
different forms of capitalism continue to flourish. There is a return to old-style
geo-politics and neo-imperialism, through which the most powerful states and
social forces have consolidated their global dominance. This phenomenon is
largely confined to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
states. Hence, there are reinforcing and enhancing state powers in many
domains.
The transformationalist raises the third prevailing argument, which is that
there is spatial reorganization and rearticulation of economic, political, military,
and cultural power. There is a shift or transformation in the scale of human social
organization. This shift extends the reach of power relations across the world’s
major regions and continents. Simply put, globalization is a multidimensional
process dividing and integrating the world.
Thrusts and Objectives of the Paper
The present paper takes the view that globalization is a worldwide process of
interconnectedness. Therefore, the nature of cities as a process is more relevant
than as a place in discussing cities in globalization. The capitalist world economy
is integrated economically but situated geographically in cities. As a result, relations
between and among cities and the link between cities as a process, and
globalization also viewed as a process, are the relevant concerns.
Five works are relevant to the understanding of cities as a process in
globalization in this paper. The first relates to Jacobs’s (1984) research. As
succinctly put by Taylor (2004), Jacobs argues that cities are dynamic. They
expand economic life and are centers of innovation in which production feeds
directly into trade. For example, import replacement is a city process because it
requires a special locale in order for it to be generated and sustained. Only cities
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can embody a critical mass of people and ideas with the skills and flexibility to
create the necessary new production. Import replacement as a process requires
connections with other cities. To gain economic wealth, there has to be a network
of cities. A clear example is Hong Kong, which has been economically independent
as a result of relations of interdependence in the world economy.
The second insightful work is that of Friedman (1986, 1995), who started
world city literature in relation to planning. He generated seven (7) world city
hypotheses re the spatial organization of the new international division of labor.
He links urbanization processes to global economic forces. Taylor (2004)
summarized this linking in three theses: First is the functional thesis contending
that structural changes in cities depend upon the integration of a city into the world
economy, and consequently upon the functions (headquarters, financial centers,
and articulators) assigned to the city. Cities link a national or regional economy to
the global economy.
Second is the hierarchical thesis describing inter-city relations. Cities
are the basing points of capital. The resulting linkages create a complex spatial
hierarchy formed by taking into account the following city characteristics: (1)
finance center; (2) corporate headquarters; (3) international institutions; (4)
business services; (5) manufacturing; (6) transportation, and (7) population size.
There are two levels of hierarchy (primary and secondary). These are
geographically arranged into a horizontal (north–south) defining core and semiperiphery cities and vertical (east–west) defining three continental subsystems:
Asian, American, and West European.
Third is the global-local thesis stating that the city’s role in the world
economy is directly reflected in the structure and change of local economy. Control
functions of cities mean that they are dominated by a number of expanding economic
sectors relating to management, finance, corporate services, and the media. This
pattern has resulted in the massive growth of highly paid economic elites –
corporate managers and specialist professionals – who provide a local market for
a vast army of low-skilled workers servicing the new rich, hence, the creation of a
highly dichotomized labor force. The world city outcome is an extremely polarized
social structure. In Friedman’s later work (1995), cities are described as centers
through which money, workers, information, and commodities flow. Thereby they
articulate the economic relations of their surrounding field or region into the global
economy. It is the scale of a city’s spatial articulation that orders the cities as
global (e.g., New York), multinational (e.g., Miami), national (e.g., Mexico), and
sub-national/regional (e.g., San Francisco).
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The third work valuable in this paper pertains to Castells’s (1996). As
stated earlier, he advanced the view that cities are a process. Taylor (2004)
synthesized Castells’s sociological view of cities as global spaces of flows. While
space is defined in terms of social practices, space of flows is defined as a
combination of layers of material supports for dominant social practices. The first
layer is infrastructural support for social practices. Flows make non-contiguous
simultaneity possible, grounded in a circuit of electronic impulses based on
communication and information devices (global internet to global airline networks).
The second layer of material support is space of the social practices that define a
society constituted by agents who use infrastructure networks to link together
specific places for carrying out ‘well-defined’ economic, cultural, and political
functions. Places of operation are termed nodes and hubs. Nodes (cities) are
where strategically important functions take place and they link localities into the
whole network. Communication hubs are places that function to coordinate
interactions across the network. All such networks are deemed to be hierarchical
in nature.
Castells postulates a “global network” connecting centers with different
intensities and at different scales, whereby regional and local centers within countries
become integrated at the global level. Hence, he defines the global city not as a
place but as a process. The third layer of material support is spatial organization
of economic elites (e.g., exclusive restaurants and cosmopolitan leisure complexes
through segregated residential and vacation locales).
The fourth work relevant to a deeper understanding of the nature of
cities in this present paper is that of Sassen (1991). Being a sociologist like
Castells, she came out with her global trilogy (New York, London, and Tokyo)
as global cities identified in a world where development is driven more by
globalization than nationalization. Again, as summarized by Taylor (2004), the
functions of these global cities, according to Sassen, operate through the demand
for control, creating command points. This creates a demand for finance and
business services. Cities are the key locations for what become the leading
economic sectors. As a result, cities become sites of production and innovation
for these leading sectors, constituting markets for the resulting leading sector
production. Sassen argues that, despite the very different provenances of the
three cities, each has experienced the same economic processes with consequent
social change (e.g., social polarization) in “parallel.” In a globalizing world
economy, global cities are more than simply “command centers.” They are the
first global service centers in urban history. Globalization accentuates national
urban hierarchies.
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The fifth work discussed in greater detail in this paper is Taylor’s (2004),
which is elaborated on for three reasons. First, Taylor built his work on those of
Jacobs (1984), Friedman (1986 and 1995), Castells (1996) and Sassen (1991),
who provided him inspiration and insights in examining further the nature of cities
as a process in globalization. This will be demonstrated in the succeeding section,
especially with regard to his conceptual framework. Secondly, Taylor examined
all of the cities in the world in great detail, and therefore his work may be taken as
the most global and thorough in the world city network discourse. Third, his
work illustrates how a particular social science discipline with its specialization
can be multidisciplinary in approach, to understand a phenomenon better. Being
a geographer, he focused on how world city data can be gathered, used, processed,
and analyzed based on the training one has received and his background.
Taylor’s inferences from his findings are valuable pieces of knowledge, as
well as sources of topics for further research in the social sciences, in arriving at a
more complete description of cities as a process in globalization. Thus, this paper
specifically aims to highlight his framework, the data he used, his methodology, his
findings, and the inferences he drew from his findings for other social scientists
from diverse disciplines to gain valuable insights in their pursuit of a better
comprehension of cities as a process in globalization forming a world city network.
I also find his evidence-based work of great merit to city policy-makers, planners
and implementors.
It may have been obvious at this point that the five works just discussed
earlier focused on cities as a process in global economy. The analyses center
mainly on the economic dimension of the nature of cities in globalization. As
stated earlier, cities today are not only centers of trade, commercial establishments,
and business firms, but are also centers of advanced culture and technology. As
destinations of immigrants hoping and searching for employment in the globalizing
world, cities and their cultures involve an adaptive process. City planners
simultaneously consider economic and cultural dimensions in order to keep global
firms within their jurisdictions for their own rapid growth and development.
The other objective of this paper is to highlight this phenomenon of cultureeconomy overlap that is very prominent in cities in these times of globalization.
Two works are chosen to emphasize this phenomenon. The work of Abrahamson
(2004), like that of Taylor, examines all global cities that are centers of the global
economy, cultural industries, and immigration. The attention Abrahamson devotes
equally to the role of economy and culture in understanding the nature of cities in
globalization is a great contribution to city scholarship. Immigration is closely
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related to globalization, and the destinations of immigrants are almost in the cities
in countries of destination. Cultural adaptation is an interesting and related subject
of inquiry. Insights gained from Abrahamson’s work are then helpful to complement
the insights gained from Taylor’s work in understanding the nature of cities in
globalization.
A specific country analysis of this culture-economy overlap is also helpful
in arriving at a better understanding of the nature of cities in globalization. Marked
shifts in emphasis among the city players (multinational corporations, business
firms to service these multinational corporations, cultural institutions, and city
government officials) are occurring, and scientific evidence is wanting in these
times of globalization. The work of Strom (2002) is very insightful in this respect.
The dynamics of such transformations heading towards the culture-economy
overlap are studied, and her work specifically illustrates the details of such overlap.
Moreover, her units of analysis are cities of the United States, which today,
according to Taylor (2004), is the hegemon, with New York as the hegemonic
city. New York as one of Sassen’s (1991) tri-global cities creates a post-colonial
‘free world’ open for American business. It has created the need for the
development of world cities in and beyond the United States. It has also been
one of the targets of international terrorism. As will be presented later under
Taylor’s work, the United States emerged exceptional in the ongoing world city
network formation. Indeed, two works to highlight the culture-economy overlap
in the study of cities as a process in globalization are chosen in the present paper
to support the view that this overlap is now a phenomenon characterizing cities in
globalization.
After reviewing the bases and pinpointing the main points of these two
evidence-based views, the paper goes further in emphasizing the role of other
social scientists, as well as identifying some important research gaps in understanding
cities in globalization more fully, particularly in the field of Demography. Problems
faced by demographers in contributing new knowledge in the pursuit of more
comprehensive understanding of cities in globalization are dealt with.
Cities in globalization forming a world city network:
First view
Recall that the study undertaken by Taylor (2004) refers to the first view about
cities in globalization. Based on the findings of four of his co-researchers, he focused
his research on the second nature of cities, which is a process. He examined
inter-city relations, dependencies, and interdependencies between cities. He
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demonstrated how cities work together as economic entities – a geo-historical
interpretation of world cities in networks.
Taylor’s conceptual framework
Based on the insights gained from the related four scholars cited earlier,
Taylor’s conceptual framework has six (6) main ingredients. First is that his main
focus is the world city network formation. Second is that he does not treat cities
as actors in situations where they do not have agency. Third, he regards cities as
economic entities for creating new wealth and stimulating development. However,
cities are not the prime agency in world city network formation as explicated in
the fourth ingredient.
In the fourth main ingredient of his conceptual framework, Taylor identifies
four key agencies in world city network formation today. The first key agency
pertains to business service firms creating city networks. Examples are Japanese
and American banks with major offices in London. The second key agency refers
to city governments organizing cities hierarchically. Examples in London are the
Office of the Greater London Mayor, the City Corporation, the London Assembly,
the London boroughs, the Cross River Partnership, the London Pride Partnership,
and the informal networks of city practitioners who make the city work. The third
crucial agency relates to service sector institutions supervising service firms.
Examples are offices where laws or professional codes of conduct that govern the
practices of firms emanate. The fourth key agency refers to nation-states organizing
cities hierarchically. One example is Britain’s support to London’s 1986 Big Bang,
when the British government gave foreign investment banks access to the London
Stock Exchange. This followed state-led measures that deregulated the British
financial system. Another example is Japan advocating the culture of saving.
All four key agencies taken together are primarily responsible for shaping
the world city network. However, these processes do not operate singly to sustain
the network. They operate in conjunction with one another in quite complex
ways. Taylor identifies two links: One is the link between service firms and cities
of mutual reciprocity. An example of this link is Japanese and American banks
with major offices in London having vested in the future success of London as an
international financial center. While equally, London has a vested interest in its
Japanese and American banks doing well. The other is the link between business
service sectors and the nation-states. An example of this link is the
professionalization of knowledge-intensive services, with the state either legitimizing
self-regulating (national) professional associations or else regulating directly. In
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turn, these professionals have manned the state apparatus to enable the state to
function (accountants, management consultants, advertisers with their public
relations skills becoming prominent in the government circle).
Although the four key agencies produce and reproduce the world city
network, Taylor focuses on the service firms in his research. The main reasons
are twofold. One is that the service firms are the economic agents that generate
wealth upon which the network has been built and is sustained (Jacobs, 1984).
The other is that the service firms, through their office networks, have created the
overall structure of the network.
Taylor’s fifth main ingredient in his framework is that conceptually, the
world city network is an interlocking network. Service firms have to provide
service where clients (multinational corporations) want to be serviced. Service
firms must develop their own global strategies to sustain their clients and to protect
their own brand name. The information technology environment has to be enabling
in order to organize services easily.
The sixth main ingredient of Taylor’s conceptual framework is the
description of the world city network. It is an interlocking network specified at
three levels. The first level is the world economy as the network level where the
services are dispensed. The second level relates to cities as the nodal level
constituting the knowledge constellations for production of services. The third
level relates to agencies (e.g., business service firms) as the sub-nodal level that
create and provide the services as the prime agency of network production and
reproduction.
His data
Taylor used 2000 data on 100 firms. These are 18 accountancy firms, 15
advertising firms, 23 banking/finance firms, 11 insurance firms, 16 law firms, and
17 management consultancy firms in each of the 315 cities in the world with these
data collected.
His methods of analysis
Taylor employs three methods of analysis. First is city-centric metageography. Meta-geography has five definitions. First is that it refers to geographical
structures through which people order their knowledge of the world (Lewis and
Wigen, 1997). Second is that it relates to unexamined spatial discourse that
provides the framework for thinking about the world across the whole gamut of
human activities and interests. Third is that it pertains to contemporary world82
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image, the largest scale of units in today’s meta-geography (e.g., world divided
into continents, map of nation-states). Fourth is that it means anchors that tie a
society to both physical and metaphysical worlds. And fifth is that it is a spatial
configuration through which sense can be made of human social activities and
ideals.
His second method of analysis is matrix creation. His third method of
analysis is the calculation of various measures of interconnectivities – the
mathematical details are not discussed in this paper, but interested readers can
read about them in his book.
His findings
There are three findings of Taylor in this research that are very relevant in
understanding cities as a process in globalization. His first basic finding is the
evidence of a world city network with a particular geography that is city-centered.
“City-centered” means the command power remaining in core-located cities and
network power in non-core cities. The interrelations between and among cities
impinge on future social change.
His first inference and related ideas based on his first basic finding
He has four inferences based on this basic finding. His first inference is
that globalization needs to be interpreted through world city lenses and world-city
concepts looking at the hegemony cycles of Wallerstein (1984) in terms of metageography as defined earlier. He also has four ideas with historical insights related
to his first inference.
The first idea is that there is a modern world system, a capitalist worldeconomy, the material basis of geography, as well as the motor of the incessant
change. There are three forms of modernity defined as state of perpetual social
change. The first form is called mercantile modernity or topological metageography of trade routes extending from the Philippines in the Far West to the
Moluccas (the Spice Islands) in the Far East. The Dutch Republic during the 17th
century was the hegemon, with Amsterdam as the hegemonic city. The East as the
land of plenty over the West in the world hierarchy and navigation was the key
practical knowledge. The second form is industrial modernity or centripetal metageography, employed during the Industrial Revolution. United Kingdom during
the 18th and 19th centuries was the hegemon with London taking over Amsterdam
as the hegemonic city. The West over East in the world hierarchy, a core of dynamic
cities and periphery of static cities with the meta-geography defining Europeans
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as superior to peoples from other parts of the world with the world map of the
British empire showing pink areas everywhere (Cook, 1984) and engineering were
the key practical knowledge. The third form is consumer modernity or mosaic
meta-geography of nation-states. The map of nation-states shows boundaries of
all states across the world resulting from decolonization. The United States during
the 20th and present centuries is the hegemon, with New York succeeding London
as the third hegemonic city. Egalitarian discourse is summed up in the slogan
“development for all”. Americanization is the world dream. Any country can
develop as long as it employs the correct development policies modeled by
Rostow’s (1960) stages of economic growth. The shift from political citizenship
to economic citizenship or consumptionship and media/advertising are the key
practical knowledge. These are in line with the needs of the United States’
multinationals working in a mosaic of national markets important in the global
strategies of advertising firms.
His second idea related to his first inference based on his first basic finding
is that there is embedded statism. Embedded statism is a mosaic meta-geography.
For instance, British trees, insects, and birds are nationalized. Natural spaces of
flows are treated as secondary to human spaces of places. Cities are nationalized
and represented as points in a territory rather than as hubs within networks in two
stages: (1) political centralization of the 16th and 17th centuries culminating in the
absolutist state of the 18th century; and (2) incorporating cities into states
(nationalization of the cities).
Effects of embedded statism. The effects of embedded statism are
threefold. First is that states are threats to cities because nationalization is a territorial
reorganization. It asserts spaces of places over spaces of flows. Thus, territorial
institutions such as states are privileged. Network institutions like cities, except
capital cities, are constrained. Capital cities, as national capitals, can prosper
immensely from being the coordinator and focus of their state’s new centralization
of power. The capital city is privileged over other cities in the state. This is a
political process as observed in Great Britain, wherein London is privileged over
Manchester. Other examples and the corresponding consequences of embedded
statism that he cited are self-explanatory. The sacking of Antwerp in 1585 by
Hapsburg forces led to the flight of leading entrepreneurs, marking the end of the
city as a leading economic force. Sarajevo was bombed by Bosnian Serbs.
Belgrade, being the capital of Yugoslavia, suffered bombings. New York,
Washington D.C., and London are now terrorist targets on the principle that
knocking off the economic and political hubs is knocking off the whole country
with political enemies specifically aiming at their respective enemy cities. Under
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embedded statism, Jacobs (1984) also discussed state threats to their cities. These
state threats are massive military expenditures, unproductive subsidies to poor
regions, and promotion of unequal trade between rich and poor economies.
Specific instances are the political machinations of the European Community,
sapping the vitality of Japanese cities by rural-based political party machines and
the threat of military-economic voraciousness to contemporary US cities.
The second effect of embedded statism is that states are becoming city
creators. This, in turn, counters the primate growth of their leading city channeling
investment into a new capital city. It is as if states are jealous of their leading
cities. Creating cities that are designed to be national and not cosmopolitan is a
recipe for urban disaster. Clear examples are the failures of St. Petersburg in
Russia and Tehran in Iran.
The third effect of embedded statism is nationalization of the study of urban
cities. Political economy is transmuted into economics, positivist social science
into sociology, and political philosophy into political science. He stresses that in
embedded statism, the geographical assumption is that all important human social
activities share exactly the same spaces. Hence, sociology (the study of society),
economics (study of economy), and political science (study of polity) all share a
common geographical boundary (state). Urban studies may be transdisciplinary,
but they have not been transnational in content. Studies of relations between cities
stopped at the national boundary (Bagnasco and Le Gales 2000, 20).
Taylor’s second inference based on his first basic finding
His second inference is that the world is becoming more economically
integrated (global capital-business services nexus) and polarized (widening gap
between the rich and the poor and increasing concentration of power) than ever
before. There is a globalization conundrum, which may be interpreted as either
state-centric (negative picture) or city-centric (a more promising picture as the
outcome). He argues that the city-centric interpretation is more promising for four
reasons. The first reason is for cities as nodes in spaces of flows. Cooperation is
inherent in inter-city relations. Mutuality is at the heart of the world city network
through the service firms and their global location strategies. Investing in expensive
offices across many cities means that these firms have a vested interest in all the
cities they operate through. A clear example is the London–Frankfurt nexus –
political economy competition between Germany and the UK as the dominant
discourse in the press while in fact, based on interviews of business service firms
practitioners and urban officials working for the promotion of city institutions in
both cities, competition is an alien notion; “What is good for London is good for
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Frankfurt” and vice versa, a dyad in a world city network where cooperative
relations interlock the cities.
The second reason for a city-centric interpretation as more promising is
that core and periphery creations are city-centered. This means that the command
power remains in core-located cities and the network power in non-core cities.
These core and non-core cities are to be seen as functional heterogeneous, not
homogeneous regions. Each has comprehensive class structures. Hence, there
are always many rich people in the periphery as well as poor people in the core.
The third reason for the more promising city-centric interpretation is that
many third world cities (e.g., Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Johannesburg,
Bangkok, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul and Hong Kong), apart
from core world cities (London, New York, Paris and Tokyo), are integral to the
office location policies of important global business service firms. These firms
need strategic locations to provide worldwide provision to clients. Therefore,
some third world cities have become powerful “places to be”. This pattern is
totally different from third world cities viewed as entrepots in imperialism than
dependents in Frank’s (1969) dependency theory. However, the pattern is
consistent with Friedman’s 1986 world city hypothesis, Jones’s (1998) “globalized
business elite” and Sassen’s (2000) “new geography of strategic places” … cutting
across national borders and the old North–South divide, implying age of transition.
The fourth reason for the more favorable city-centric interpretation is that
world cities in globalization operating as a world city network are responsible for
the dispersion of economic power in a polarizing world. Service firms in these
cities are becoming cutting-edge technology enterprises. They are central to the
restructuring of the network.
Taylor’s third inference based on his first basic finding
The third inference is that globalization is a meta-geographical transition
in which cities are playing a key role in world city network formation. Their
agents, like business firms, have become global corporations, having an array of
offices in world cities across the globe. Economic globalization, world city network
formation, and new international division of labor all started in the 1970s with
world city network formation. Such formation operates only in a single major
phase of the world-economy. The long world-economy downturn into the 1990s
is associated with increases in economic polarizations. There is a need to assess
the world city network within globalization in the context of a world-economy
growth phase.
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Taylor’s fourth inference based on his first basic finding
His fourth inference, which is his very basic assumption in providing insights
about the future, is that world city network is part of the globalization processes.
The network is not inherently regressive in nature. It can do more than service
global capital.
The second striking finding of Taylor is American exceptionalism within
the world city formation. There is a global America only in: (1) New York joining
London at the core zone; (2) many leading cities as global service articulators;
and (3) US cities being well represented as command power centers. In general,
however, US cities are always most strongly connected to other cities within the
US and less prominent in the world city network. Why is this so? He talks of two
effects. One is the “shadow effect” in which non-US service firms developing a
global strategy must locate in New York (and perhaps Chicago and Los Angeles)
but decide on no further penetration of an already well-serviced US domestic
market. They need a US presence for their non-US clients but do not wish to
invest to service within the US market itself. The other is a “comfort effect” in
which leading US financial and business service firms may decide not to develop
a global strategy and concentrate on expanding within the domestic market.
His lone inference based on his second finding is that US cities in
globalization are seen more in terms of dominance of a space of places while the
non-US cities are moving towards a space of flows. This shows a pattern of
emerging freedom of cities reflecting US as the main initiator of globalization, yet
the only country with a preserved space of autonomy (large degree of national
sovereignty) within globalization. The US is the lone political superpower, housing
the most important economic segment of the world economy with the following
thought-provoking questions:
1. How will cities in globalization develop in a world-economy dominated
by a single, territorial “‘superpower’”?
2. General issue: How does a global space of flows interact with an
international space of places?
3. Will New York play the role of linking the spaces of places and spaces
of flows?
Taylor’s third study finding from his research is that cities gaining freedom
from the control of nation-states are those beyond the core, where states are
weak and sometimes failing. Kinshasa and Zaire are the best examples. These
cities show prominence of space of flows. He has seven (7) inferences based on
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his third finding. The first is that world cities need global networks and are therefore
intrinsically transnational. The second is that with globalization, certain critical
parts of cities’ economies are becoming less and less accountable to the
encompassing state – for instance financial markets, in which currency trading has
undermined state control of what has been a key indicator of state sovereignty.
Freeing of cities from containerization imposed by the states gives the same
transnational view of cities. For example, London is not simply Britain’s world
city. New York is not simply US’s world city any more than Milan is Italy’s world
city or Toronto is Canada’s world city. They are world cities operating through a
world city network that is reproducing cities beyond their state’s exigencies.
The third inference is that cities are becoming increasingly important. On
the other hand, states, which are killers of cities, are declining under conditions of
contemporary globalization. Taylor highlighted the following historical examples
of increasing freedom of cities and of killing of cities.
The Dutch Republic of 58 cities had economical politics, which means
concern for networks of trade and finance with policies that independent cities
pursued before the rise of the modern state. The Dutch polity is a polycentric cityregion with continued city-centric economical politics; hence, a rise in both
Amsterdam and Leiden, each playing a win–win game of cooperation.
In contrast, England is more of a military power than an economic one. It
had political economy, which means development of economic ideas, policies to
serve the state, concern for territory, state mercantilism, and embedded statism.
Hence, a decline of Central Castile, the Toledo decline and outgrown by Madrid,
Madrid and Toledo playing a zero-sum game of competition
Taylor concludes that it is political economy that kills cities (other than
capital cities), whereas cities prosper under conditions of economical politics.
His fourth inference is that political economy can also be viewed as a
mosaic discourse that promotes a space of places in a world in which the salience
of spaces of flows is growing. This is reflected globally in international relations
that are essentially realist in nature. It is a thought and practice that is about
competition between states. This competition is manifested through city hierarchies.
His fifth inference is that research on competition between cities that
counters the network mutuality argument yields an urban policy of zero-sum games.
There are problems as there is recognition of mutuality; i.e., cities compete plainly
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and cooperate equally in a world city network. Apparent recipe of policy confusion
is how to compete and cooperate at the same time. The reality, however, is that it
is only firms that compete (in markets), not nations (Krugman, 1994; Budd, 1998).
His sixth inference is that in conceptualizing the world city network as an
interlocking network, the competition is between global service firms. Global
service firms in world networks compete for financial and business services but
cooperate for a single practice. Realization of mutual benefits is the goal. One
possibility is that big city mayors may be increasingly independent of national
political parties to be important contributors to the creation of a global economical
politics for the 21 st century. The policy logic is that city governments need to
attend to much more than just their place. They need to devote as much political
energy to their networks (Beaverstock et al., 2001). They need to attend to other
places beyond their specific jurisdictions. This is economical or network politics,
or thinking beyond political economy to economical politics.
His seventh inference based on his third finding is that cities can reach their
wealth potential only through operating in a space of flows. Imposition of
boundaries as barriers to those flows is harmful.
Taylor’s general insights about the future
Precursory to his ideas, Taylor noted two city-centered future scenarios.
One is the official futurist of the European Union, Petrella’s (1995) corporate
dystopia. It is a chilling city-centered future in which today’s G-7 leading states
are replaced by the top 30 city regions (CR-30) to dominate the world. How?
Through an alliance of the global merchant class and metropolitan governments
whose chief function is supporting the competitiveness of the global firms to which
they are host. World cities will be forming a giant web. They will form a wealthy
archipelago of city regions with manageable populations of between 8–12 million
separated from an encompassing impoverished world.
The other is Jacob’s (1984) “utopian fantasy” of secession to counter the
actions of states that threaten cities – “killing the goose that lays its golden age”.
The solution is city secession. Taylor’s interpretation of her utopia is utopian
freedom against dystopian dominance for future cities in globalization.
Taylor’s own insights about the future, as already mentioned earlier, is
premised on his fourth inference on his first basic finding that today, there is a
world city network that is city-centered to impinge on social change. He infers
that the world city network is part of globalization processes and is not inherently
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regressive in nature. It can do more than service global capital. Hence, he talks
of transnational democracy in globalization.
However, he points out several inherent problems of modern democracy
in globalization. First is that there is a democratic paradox in contemporary
globalization (Giddens, 1999). There is a clearly defined and accountable
government giving way to a nebulous governance. Second is that the fundamental
problem for democracy in globalization is the erosion of a franchised people equating
to a “community of fate” in the sense that they can control their own future (Held
et al. 1999). Third is that modern democracy is intrinsically bound with the
legitimated nation-state where the nation is an imagined community (Anderson,
1983). The political economy democracy model incorporates this designated
“people” with a common past as a political actor whose elected leaders are
expected to achieve continuous economic “national development” into the future.
It is this combining of past and future – roots with fate – in the nation that makes
democracy a plausible collective enterprise. The imagined community is also a
common community of fate. However, the basic political threat of globalization is
the separation of these two idealized communities (nation and community of fate
in the nation) as a result of economic forces (world city network) beyond the state
becoming increasingly dominant. Thus, the rule of the people is meaningless if
their elected leaders are deprived of the levers of power. The fourth problem is
that modern democracy is territorial, a bounded practice as condemned (Castells,
1996) to operate in space of places, leaving the space of flows to other activities
(economics/work, culture/identity). Hence, modern democracy is vulnerable in a
globalizing world.
Taylor advances several logical solutions to these problems. First is
territorial organization of politics to give way to a non-territorial democratic form,
but this is highly complex. Second is the need for an institutional anchor (metageography) that is non-territorial (e.g., NGOs and social movements), but these
also lose community attachment as they represent their own self-select networks,
not representing all people within a given territory. Third is simultaneously thinking
in terms of both place and flows; spaces of places are necessary for building an
imagined community while spaces of flows are necessary for any meaningful
depiction of a community of fate. Cities or city-regions and their networks are the
obvious geographical candidates that fit both needs. While being nodes within
urban networks, cities are also places with long histories of being distinctive
communities. Most cities are older than the states that govern them. Cities, as the
crossroads of society, are inherently non-territorialist. If globalization is in the
process of ‘unbounding’ them, then the full network potential of cities beyond the
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nation-state can be made available for creating a new economical politics. This
may be feasible as world cities are polarized communities where global capital
meets democracy.
Summary
The above findings, inferences, ideas, and future insights of Taylor indicate
that cities are not creating and reacting to a simple process of globalization leading
to an overarching world city hierarchy. There is a multifaceted geography of
arenas through which cities operate not only as service centers for global capital
but as creators of economical politics (their main concern being for networks of
trade and finance). They operate as nodes in spaces of flows through a world city
network. Cooperation for a single practice and mutuality of benefits as the goal
are inherent in inter-city relations as well as spaces of places with long histories of
being distinctive communities. Hence, there are local-global and regional-global
nexuses within contemporary globalization. There is no single process of
globalization but rather multiple globalizations in which cities play a great role as
spaces of flows and places in the creation of economical politics which appear to
be more beneficial to both cities and nation-states than political economics. Along
these lines is the need for city-centric intellectual discourses economically,
demographically, politically, socially, and culturally for a more comprehensive
understanding of the nature of cities in globalization.
Cities in globalization reflecting clear culture-economy
overlap: Second view
The second view on cities in globalization pertains to the overlap of culture and
economy. As stated earlier, two studies are reviewed in relation to this view. One
is the study of Abrahamson (2004). The other is that of Strom (2002). Each is
treated separately in the following sections, stressing their main findings,
generalizations, and implications.
Abrahamson’s study: Cities as centers of the global economy and cultural
industries and immigration and their implications.
For their place in the global economy, Abrahamson identified cities as
centers of the global economy, which is characterized by three indicators. First is
the presence of the world’s largest stock exchanges in 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Second is the location of the largest banks in the world, as defined by their total
assets, and the location of the world’s largest financial service institutions, as
reflected by market capitalization (i.e., the value of their common stock). Third is
the housing of the headquarters of multinational corporations or foreign direct
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investments. Abrahamson’s city’s place in the cultural hierarchy is based on
headquarters locations of the principal cultural industries (recorded music, movies,
and television). He constructed a composite index construction for both.
His findings
His main findings reveal the leading global cities (economic and cultural
hierarchy combined). New York is at the global city apex as cultural and economic
center. London, Paris, and Tokyo are in the second tier. Los Angeles is in the 3rd
tier. Toronto and Hong Kong are in the 4th tier. Frankfurt, Chicago, Osaka, Zurich,
Milan, and Singapore are specialized economic centers. Sydney emerges as a
specialized cultural center.
His scenarios
Based on his findings, he has three scenarios. First is that Sydney possesses
an economic stature to grow and match its cultural standing. Second is that the
number of global cultural centers will increase (e.g., Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro).
Third is that given the interplay between the cultural and economic dimensions,
Chicago and Frankfurt may expand as cultural centers, too.
His generalizations
He has five (5) concluding generalizations. First is that the process of
conglomeration is occurring in all types of firms (economic and cultural). Second
is that each firm makes a series of strategic decisions involving other firms, such as
when to compete and when to cooperate. Third is that the eventual economic
success of products of the cultural industry is difficult to predict; they are frequently
expensive to produce compared to economic products, and it can be a long time
before they pay any return on the investment. Fourth is that to minimize risks,
cultural firms tend to cooperate rather than compete; they compete on promotions
and advertising but not on price. Fifth is that, as with business service firms, cultural
industries create the highlypaid and lowlypaid labor force resulting in wide income
inequality in global cities.
His inferences
Like Taylor, Abrahamson has four (4) inferences related to his findings on
identifying global cities as to global economic and cultural hierarchy. First, with
the growing control of multinational corporations, vying with each other to retain
multinational corporations or lure those headquartered elsewhere into relocating,
nations try to make themselves more attractive to these firms. This typically involves
deregulation (a reflection of embedded statism which may also involve creation of
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a new capital city as discussed with Taylor’s study). As the global reach of
multinationals has lessened the control of their home nations and increased internation competition, nations responded paradoxically by further relinquishing
control. This is consistent with one of Taylor’s inferences on competition through
city hierarchies between states.
Second, dual-service sectors, low-status end (fast food workers, janitors,
security guards, and so on), and the high-status end (lawyers, computer
programmers, accountants, and so on) in the business service firms exist in the
global cities. While increases in high-status service positions mean increases in
low-status positions, the latter is at a disadvantage of low salary because of the
oversupply of labor by immigrants, thus widening the gap and contraction of middleincome positions. This is consistent with Taylor’s inference on the globalization
conundrum with today’s world becoming more economically integrated (global
capital-business service link) and polarized (widening the gap between the rich
and the poor) than ever before.
Third, there will be greater polarization in London, due in part to growth
at the high and low ends of service occupations. There will be increased
polarization in New York due to increase in poorly paying, low-status service
jobs and to city, state, and national welfare reform and retrenchment. Tokyo
will have a similar experience plus a rise of domestic and foreign chains (7Eleven and Starbucks employing low-status clerks and fewer middle-class
owners). Recall that these cities are Sassen’s three leading global cities in a
global development-driven world.
Fourth, the residential segregation of the poor and affluent (neighborhoods
of concentrated affluence) versus poor areas with a high rate of unemployment,
crime, and delinquency and lacking in recreational amenities and being socially
isolated from the rest of the city, may further evolve into a patchwork of increasingly
separate and isolated social spaces. Sao Paulo is his case study, a notable
global city where the wealthiest 10% (executives of multinational corporations,
venture capitalists, hereditary wealth holders) own nearly 50% of the nation’s
wealth, living in well-guarded communities and flying helicopters to their high-rise
offices, their beach homes, and even to religious services over buses and cars that
jam Sao Paulo’s streets and freeways in a sea of poverty (street children, slums,
declining middle-class to join the poor class because of unemployment and
underemployment, very pronounced income inequality).
His findings and inferences on immigration
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Abrahamson’s analysis of immigration reveals that the world’s total
immigrants are growing between 2 and 4 million people each year. Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States have received a
third of these and contain all of the leading global cities except Hong Kong and
Singapore. The leading global cities are at the top of the list of immigrant objectives
and destinations of large numbers of highly diverse groups of immigrants. For
example, New York has received immigrants from Bangladesh, China, the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, the Philippines, Poland,
the former Soviet Union, and Trinidad and Tobago. Many immigrants are desperate
and prepared to take enormous risks (e.g., one Liberian swimming to Sicily) and
to survive. Many are pushed into an underground economy and illegal activities
(prostitution, sale of illicit drugs, loan sharking, unlicensed vans operating in New
York City).
Immigrant women are more economically disadvantaged and vulnerable
to exploitation than their male counterparts. Most young immigrants from Taiwan
sell betel nuts in the most flirtatious costumes to lure potential buyers (Betel Nut
Beauty, dancers, prostitutes). Domestic workers such as servants, maids, nannies,
and home care providers are poorly paid. There is gender discrimination (historically,
e.g, in Paris) in two types of commerce, the bourgeoisie (elitist and fashionable
clients) and the popular (street clients), with women immigrants working as more
of the popular type. Illegal entrants are unskilled and exploited in the garment
industry in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Smuggling people is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise, with marked
rises since the 1980s in two forms: immigrant exporting (high fees paid by
immigrants) or slave importing (managed by specialized criminal organizations) or
a mixture of both. Abrahamson’s case study relates to smuggling Chinese
immigrants to the US from Fujian Province (fee = $18,000), with the final destination
being New York via Mexico or Central America, Moscow, Cuba; the practice is
controlled by gangs to make sure the immigrants keep up with their payments and
end up taking any job no matter how poorly it pays in garment shops, domestic
jobs, or restaurants. As a result, women with babies send their babies back to
China (fee = $1000) to be able to survive in the US while paying their illegal
immigrant fee on installment.
Sex industries from slave importing operations put these smuggled
immigrants under the control of the organized crime groups, leaving them with no
alternative but to succumb. According to International Labor Organization (ILO)
estimates, there are 120,000 Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American women
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who enter the sex industry each year; 50,000 Chinese, Mexican, and Polish women
are likewise brought into the US annually to work in the sex trade in the cities of
LA, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. A smaller number lands in London
and Paris.
Immigrants tended to congregate in enclaves (places in which members of
an ethnic, religious or racial group share common traditions, and support specialized
shopping venues, such as ethnic groceries or religious goods stores). Enclaves
tend to be relatively self-contained institutionally (schools, home for the aged,
with same-language newspapers and radio and television stations). Examples of
such enclaves are those of Cuban Americans in Miami’s Little Havana, Muslims in
Vienna, Austria, Chinatown, and the Pacific Mall in Toronto. The reasons behind
the burgeoning of these enclaves are discrimination, unwelcoming host residents,
pull factors (closeness and cooperation, identifying with place of origin: “When I
am here, I feel like I am back in Hong Kong.”). Enclaves differ by composition,
physical condition, affluence of residents, location in a metropolitan area,
employment opportunities (e.g., Lithuanian enclave on Southside of Chicago termed
as “Back of the Yards” where work in slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants
takes place). Enclaves formed by exiles are better in conditions (Little Havana,
Chinatowns) and are more progressive with their own housing and employment
centers and even global business service firms (e.g., banks) and transnational
enterprises (cultural goods). Enclaves are important tourist attractions (showing
two pictures – the picturesque image of the sanitized ethnic village for tourists,
and the gritty, littered urban district with immigrants working in the backs of
restaurants and sweatshops, which tourists do not see) in global cities.
Strom’s study of cultural institutions located in US cities
Surveying 65 cities (pop. = 250,000 or more) in the United States, Strom
(2002) provides more empirical evidence of the culture-economy overlap. She
found a “cultural building boom” with 71 major performing arts centers and
museums built or expanded since 1985, in a short span of time, mostly outside the
traditional cultural centers (New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco) as
an explicit part of a city’s economic revitalization program reflecting a city growth
coalition of profit-seekers, political leaders and cultural institutions.
Features of the city growth coalition
Strom identifies five (5) main features of this city growth coalition. The
first feature is that business and political leaders need to coalesce with the cultural
institutions to attract tourism and investment to the city. She notes the shift from
the view of investments in culture as incidental (1950s – 1970s) to being crucial in
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industrial retention and office and housing development (since the 1980s). She
points out several reasons for this shift.
The first reason is that more cultural institutions in a city make it more appealing
to tourists and investors. Hence, there are more firms, more yuppies, and dinks for
a better quality of work and life. The end result is wealth (profit for capitalists and
owners of business firms, and income to city government from tourism and investment).
The second reason is that city governments are aware that competing for corporate
headquarters and producer service firms relying on highly skilled labor implies not
only lower taxes and improved infrastructure, but also appealing natural and cultural
resources (riverfront parks, sports arenas, historic districts).
The third reason is that more city officials are becoming aware of the
economic importance of tourism, hence the building or enlarging of convention
centers and subsidizing new hotels and attracting major retailers.
Fourth is that cultural institutions (e.g., local arts) representing an important
element of the recreational infrastructure are now viewed to make a city not only
more appealing to tourists and investors but a business asset and philanthropic
opportunity among corporations (e.g., Ford Motor’s view of Detroit’s opera and
donors to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center) to make recruitment of whitecollar employees easier.
Fifth is that city governments and place-based business elites are becoming
more intent on marketing their cities. City promoters are shifting from the model
of selling (trying to persuade the buyer to purchase what one has) to marketing
(trying to have what the buyer wants). Cultural institutions are associated with
beauty, good taste, and higher purpose as singularly important symbolic assets for
image-conscious marketers.
Sixth is that development practitioners and scholars now appreciate that the
arts comprise a wealth-generating economic sector, one in which urban areas retain
a competitive advantage (e.g., New York with its culture industry – National
Endowment for the Arts 1981, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
1993).
Seventh is that cultural projects are now valued as a means of bringing
life and economic impulse after business hours in central cities. Examples of
such projects are Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the
Seattle Art Museum, and Benaroya Hall), transforming waning downtowns,
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obsolete factory districts, and disregarded waterfronts into places of cultural
attractions.
The eighth reason is that the arts are lending greater legitimacy to other
urban development efforts among those who would not normally see themselves as
beneficiaries. Examples are “downtown consumption palaces” or “tourist bubble”.
The second feature of the city growth coalition is that cultural institutions
need to coalesce with business and political leaders in the urban development
scheme for their own economic needs and revitalization. Some of the cultural
institutions’ concerns about the city’s economic health may derive from the interests
of their board of trustees (capitalists), although profit-seeking cultural board
members usually grant arts professionals a great deal of autonomy in running the
institution’s operations. Cultural institutions need to bring their customers (cultural
audiences) to them, hence their locations must be made safe and secure by the
city government. Relying greatly on tourism, they have a strong interest in the
city’s overall appeal to tourists. Being heavily dependent on the availability of
local volunteers, they must be located in affluent neighborhoods that are located
in cities. Wealthy individuals and corporations are the main sources of program
funds and usually focus their donations on their hometowns. Learning that they
can benefit from being perceived as sources of economic health, state governments
and capitalists become major funding sources (examples are Ray Chambers as
financier of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Sidney Kimmel as financier
of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts) with the city’s economic
future as their main interest.
Blurred high and popular culture as a result of this city growth coalition is the
third feature of the city growth coalition. Before 1980, the primary funders were the
individual economic elites and government, but after then, the funders were the
foundations of economic elites and government. The attracting paying audiences
before 1980 were small elite crowds, but after 1980, these audiences were the
largest possible crowd. The type of art and art audiences before 1980 promoted
high culture for the rich and popular culture for the middle class, but after 1980 there
was a mix of high and popular culture for both the rich and the middle class.
Today, the blurred high culture and popular culture is the result of broadening
to keep core elite audiences and to attract broader audiences through popularizing
techniques and commercial marketing. Museums no longer sell only postcards
and art books but a whole range of merchandise. Metropolitan Museums display
European paintings and Greek sculptures with Hollywood costumes and Armani’s
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works. Theaters are programming multiple performances, examples being
Broadway shows with a symphony orchestra, country fiddlers, and travel lectures;
the Tulsa Performing Arts Center with its Broadway musical Showboat; Brahms
Oratorio music, the Moscow String Quartet; the U.S. Marine Band; and a pops
concert of Frank Sinatra hits.
The fourth feature of the city growth coalition is the coalition of arts
advocates, economic development officials, and tourism industry staff to promote
cultural tourism.
A changing relationship between art and the economy is the fifth feature of
the city growth coalition. During the early 20th century, art and economy were
distinct, with American cultural institutions displaying the wealth of the economic
elite, and economic gain not being an aim of this elite (“pork into porcelain”).
Today, there is a close association between culture and economy. Economic elite
as well as the local officials and culture professionals collaborate to make culture
create the public image needed for economic growth and new jobs.
However, the reality is that cultural institutions have limited usefulness as
vehicles of economic development. They could function as elite establishments,
bringing prestige to their city and attracting a few well-heeled tourists and an
amenity-oriented business, but they would seldom draw large enough crowds to
be considered commercial catalysts. They may, however, join the coalition of
city-promoters (themselves, their funders, local officials, tourism promoters)
involved in developing and marketing the city’s cultural offerings. The end result
would be consumption of culture and income for the city.
Summary
The studies of Abrahamson and Strom both consistently demonstrate that:
(1) the dominant cities (e.g., New York, London, and Tokyo) in the global economy
are also important nodes in the global cultural hierarchy, reflecting the prominence
of the interpenetration between global economy and culture, or the economic
becoming cultural and the cultural becoming economic with museums, galleries,
Disney stores, theaters, studios and the like interspersed among the high-rise buildings
in virtually every major global city’s financial district; (2) cultural diversions are vital
to the economies of global cities in terms of convention centers and hotels, and
theaters and restaurants – they contribute to each city’s overall image, attract tourists
and footloose business enterprises to relocate; (3) popularity begets popularity
through cultural industries being employed to sell more of the world’s commodities;
and (4) all of the leading global cities, except Tokyo and Singapore, are the destinations
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of large numbers of highly diverse groups of immigrants. They bring with them their
own culture and tend to congregate in enclaves (places in which members of an
ethnic, religious, or racial group, sharing common traditions, support specialized
shopping venues such as ethnic groceries or religious goods stores), resulting in enclave
tourist attractions as well as fragmentations of the cultural dimensions of cities.
Research gaps in understanding the nature of cities in globalization
The above two views on cities in globalization, with the very rich insights
of the three city scholars reviewed in this paper, as well as those of other renowned
city scholars cited by Taylor, have broadened the understanding of cities in
globalization. Utilizing city-centric data, though very limited, Taylor (business
firms data) and Abrahamson (stock exchanges, banks, financial service institutions,
multinational corporations headquarters, and cultural industries data) demonstrated
the richness of knowledge gained from and the need for analyzing cities beyond
national boundaries. They have successfully provided proof that cities are becoming
increasingly important economically, culturally, and demographically under
contemporary globalization – a process viewed as inevitable and irreversible. Strom
has shown the importance of collaboration between the agencies defined by Taylor
(business firms, city government, cultural institutions) in making cities economically
and culturally healthy. Given the complexity of cities as constantly evolving entities,
the active participation of scholars from other social science disciplines in further
understanding cities in globalization is encouraged.
With the evidence of a world city network that is city-centered to impinge
on social change, with cities as centers of both wealth and culture and the
corresponding trouble (exploitation or discrimination of immigrants, crime,
overcrowding or fast population growth, pollution, widening gap between the rich
and the poor, crime, and the like) that ensues, a city-centric study of cities in
globalization has shown itself to be necessary. Most of the studies done on cities
are state-centric, and, as reviewed by Taylor citing Bagnasco and Le Gales (2000),
studies of relations between cities stopped at the national boundary. Taylor’s
approach of understanding relations of cities from the geographer’s expertise,
employing 2000 data on 100 business firms in 315 cities and city-centric metageography in a trans-disciplinary perspective, can be complemented in various
ways by other social scientists using their respective disciplinary expertise and
skill but also in a trans-disciplinary approach. His conceptual framework can be
adopted or modified, depending on the availability of data and research interest.
Demographers can greatly contribute to the body of knowledge on cities
in globalization with their expertise and skill in analyzing cities as a process in
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globalization. Demography is a discipline that is multidisciplinary because it is
concerned with the collection and analysis of data relating to numerical size, growth
(due to fertility, mortality, and migration), and characteristics (determined by
marriage, labor force, education, income, and urbanization) of human populations
and the interpretation of these data against their social, biological, economic,
political, geographical, ecological, and historical background. Population, which
is the main focus of the study of demographers, matters because population is the
foundation not only of the state but of the city to which the population belongs.
Specifically, population size matters. For Plato (427–347 B.C.), as translated by
F.M. Comford, the optional size of a city-state ranges from 50,500 to 60,480 in
total population; for Petrella (1995), a world city should have a manageable
population of between 8–12 million.
The potential contribution of demographers in the intellectual and policy
discourse on cities in globalization is indeed great and challenging. For example,
a city-centric approach of understanding the process of urbanization, comparing
the pace of growth of cities worldwide, and interpreting this pace against the
social, economic, political, geographical, ecological, cultural, and historical
background can be done as data on city populations are readily available. The
same can be done for city-approach analyses of fertility and mortality. All of these
can be done in line with the assessment of the world city network within
globalization in the context of a world economy-culture growth phase. At present,
as Taylor has pointed out, the study of cities tends to be more national in content
rather than transnational because of embedded statism. Thinking beyond national
boundaries in the study of cities seems to be an urgent call.
However, demographers face the problem of data when it comes to a
city-centric approach of analyzing migration. To date, there is a demographic
data paradox in globalization. Collection of immigration/emigration statistics at
points of entry/departure such as airports and piers is territorially bound. There
are no city-centric migration data because of the nation- or state-centric system
of collecting immigration statistics. One way to solve this paradox is for nations or
states to appreciate the value of city-centric migration data by including cities of
origin and destinations in the collection, processing, and publication of migration
statistics. The same can be done with labor force and education statistics to pave
the way for a more comprehensive city-centric study of cities in globalization.
Reversing the focus of study as globalization and not cities, irrespective of
social science discipline, the shift from state-centric to city-centric analysis of
globalization is also crucial. Interpreting globalization through world city lenses
and world city concepts undoubtedly yields clearer insights.
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JOSEFINA V. CABIGON
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